Google Bard will soon have plugins (Google Flights, Google Hotels, Google Maps, Instacart, Kayak, etc.)

The chatbot Google Bard, one of the main competitors of the very popular ChatGPT, has been available in France for a few days. Largely improved in its latest version, Bard will also benefit from plugins that will allow (among other things) the chatbot to interface with other services or apps (Docs, Drive, Gmail, Maps, etc.). The arrival of the plugins had been announced at the last Google I/O, and during the presentation keynote, Google had even indicated that Bard would soon be supported in fireflythe powerful generative AI from Adobe.

As soon as the plugins are available, Bard will be able to interface with Google Flights, Google Hotels, Google Maps, Instacart, Kayak, OpenTable, Redfin, YouTube and Zillow. The “Bard Extensions” menu (the name for AI plugins) will allow you to select or deselect the services attached to Bard. Note that support for plugins under Bard will be completely transparent: depending on the request made, Bard will “draw” from the most appropriate service for the response. For example, if you ask “Where can I order a room for the night of July 20-21 in the town of Punxsutawney? », Bard will respond with information provided by Google Hotels.

Google would also prepare a Workspace extension for Bard, which would give the chatbot access to Google Docs, Drive and Gmail. The arrival of the plugins will also allow Bard to stick to ChatGPT, the latter having had the plugins for several months already.